You come to Content Israel, the largest content marketing conference in the Holy Land. The first thing you see is hungry marketers. Each marketer is hungry for something different: some try to catch the biggest fish in the sea and talk business, some are gathering the latest trends, others are craving networking opportunities.

Webpalers wanted to get equipped with knowledge (ok, you can throw networking on our to-do list as well😊). It turns out that you can learn a lot in one day. So, let’s get to it – what did we learn?

If You’re in Content Marketing, Be a Storyteller.

Ok, storytelling was such a popular topic, I feel like not mentioning it in the Content Israel conference recap would be a crime.

Stories can take many forms. Those that drive the most performance and engagement are customer-led stories, stories featuring pro-bono cases, and humoristic stories.

Here’s a story, presented at the conference, that made my day. The video sparked a lot of interest. I heard people having conversations about it during the networking sessions as well:

What can you learn from this example? I guess being bold pays off. I’m not saying that you should go and create stories featuring cocaine, just remember that being bold triggers emotions and when emotions are involved, it’s just easier to recall your story.

Winningstories are quirkystories – Like the story about FedExing a giant panda. Do you know it? If you don’t, then you should definitely familiarize yourself with it. What the storytellers did is thought about one bizarre thing that FedEx can deliver and erected an entire campaign around it – from articles about pandas to a special Panda Express plane.

Winning stories are personal stories – Give your employees the mic. Let them share their work experiences and ambitions. That way, you’ll give a chance to peek inside what’s going on at your company. Here’s how TELUS did it:

While we’re on the subject of personal stories, you can think of customers talking about your product as stories too. This one was from Google, and they called it “The Customer Reference Program.” Your best bet is to make it systematic and push it lower in the content funnel, as MOFU or BOFU content (more about that below😊).

Winningstories are interactive stories – Interactive stories to the rescue! They help convey complex messages and ramp up those engagement rates. I think this is a great example of such a story.

If You’re in Content Marketing, Be an Economist.

The Pareto Principle – the way it works is you only need to put 20% of the work into content creation and 80% into its promotion. To make sure your work truly bears fruit, first let the content funnel be your friend.

As you go down the content funnel, you should gradually move from content that has nothing to do with your product to content that is more product-focused. This also means considering various user acquisition stages. TOFU is probably best for the awareness stage, MOFU is great for the consideration stage, and BOFU is there to help you during the decision stage.

And what about the 80%? Here’s a quick checklist for you:

Keyword research – hunt for both high- and low-intent keywords and even keywords semantically related to the topic of your article; use Google autocomplete (if you’re not on it already); look at the keywords your competitors are using; scout Wikipedia.

Go back to Google – once your keyword research is completed, go back to Google and see what results it shows for your keywords. Categorize, prioritize the results (blogs, forums, etc.) and try exploring the domains and the audiences that hang out on the sites that appeared.

Promote in bursts – promoting in bursts creates a sense of urgency and momentum, helping you turn your product into that thing that everyone’s talking about. It’s easier to do if you slice your content into smaller bits and promote as individual pieces across channels, including paid ads on LinkedIn, Google, YouTube, and Facebook.

Some of you will automatically think “landing pages.” The truth is, users can smell a dedicated landing page that’s trying to sell them something a mile away. Try having a special page connected to your website. That way it’ll look like just another website page, and you’ll give users an opportunity to explore your digital home.

Retargeting – MOFU content is best for retargeting purposes. You can push an eBook, for instance, and then butter up your prospects with a coupon.

So far so good, but before getting into any content creation, take one key rule of thumb: Answering questions like “Who am I telling the story to/writing this piece for?” and “Where people are going to hear/read this story?” Without the answers, you might find yourself shooting blanks into the sky.

It was a hell of a conference! Big thanks to the organizers and the speakers. We can’t wait for Content Israel 2019.

Want to come with us next year? Here are our open positions. Hopefully, you’ll find what you’re looking for.

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